Course Description:

In some ways this is just the first course in a liberal arts college education.  As a result we have the responsibility to try together to become better readers, writers, and talkers--since reading, writing, and talking are basic skills of liberal education.  It is also the first course in St. Olaf general education in religion.  As a result we have the responsibility to try together to think more clearly about the Bible: What kind of book is it?  How does it fit into our society?  Who wrote it?  What does it mean for different people today?  How can we read it?

Each section of Religion 121 has a special emphasis.  In this section we will focus on slavery and “civil rights” in the Bible, and on some of the ways people have subsequently used the Bible either to justify slavery, or to campaign for civil rights.

Course Requirements

Regular attention to assigned readings.

Purposeful participation in our conversation.

Timely completion of papers and other smaller written projects

connected to Round Tables

Mid-term exam.

Final Exam.

Required Texts:

The Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)
Stephen Harris, Understanding the Bible
(photocopied material)

Goals of General Education in the Bible for Religion 121b

to become familiar with important methods and findings of the historical study of the Jewish and Christian Bible

to become familiar with the diversity of types of writing in the Bible

to explore the contemporary vitality of biblical perspectives

to become familiar with the theological diversity of the Bible

to become familiar with Jewish and Christian understandings of the central story-line of the Bible

to increase appreciation for the complex impact of the Bible on contemporary cultural experience

to increase appreciation for the moral challenges and resources posed by the Bible

to increase appreciation for diverse perceptions of the Bible by people in different social circumstances (e.g., wealth or poverty, power or powerlessness, cultural privilege or disenfranchisement)

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